- Trump whines at Boebert for supporting Massie
Source: Fox News
“President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., a longtime ally of the president, and threatened to back a primary challenger after she campaigned for one of his top Republican rivals. Trump lashed out on Truth Social against Boebert, whom he previously endorsed for reelection, just hours after she campaigned with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of Trump’s most vocal GOP critics in Congress. ‘Is anyone interested in running against Weak Minded Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District?’ Trump wrote. The president criticized Boebert for supporting Massie, whose primary challenger, retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, has Trump’s endorsement.” (05/17/26)
- The Hague: Rwandan genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga dies
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Felicien Kabuga, a suspect in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, has died in custody, a UN court said on Saturday. He was 93 years old. The court, the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), said it had ordered an inquiry into the circumstances of his death. Kabuga was once one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives. He was accused of encouraging and bankrolling the massacres between April and June 1994, in which Hutu extremists killed more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days. … Kabuga evaded arrest for more than two decades after the genocide, using a succession of false passports and aided by a network of former Rwandan allies. … Hist trial started in 20222. … Kabuga, however, was later ruled unfit to stand trial because of dementia.” (05/16/26)
https://www.dw.com/en/rwandan-genocide-suspect-felicien-kabuga-dies-in-custody/a-77184740
- KS: Judge Blocks Law Banning Gender-Transition Treatments for Youths
Source: New York Times
“Kansas cannot enforce its ban on nonsurgical gender-transition treatments for minors, a state judge ruled on Friday. The ruling gives supporters of transgender rights a significant, though temporary, victory after more than a year of setbacks in capitols and courtrooms across the country. … The judge, Carl Folsom III of the State District Court in Douglas County, said in granting a temporary injunction that the law had likely violated parents’ rights to make decisions for their children. Attorney General Kris W. Kobach, a Republican whose office defended the law, criticized the ruling as ‘a stark example of judicial activism,’ and vowed to appeal.” (05/16/26)
- Hamas confirms top commander killed in Israeli air strike
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A Hamas official has confirmed to the BBC that Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, commander of the group’s armed wing, was killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on Friday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that Haddad had been ‘responsible for the murder, kidnapping and injury of thousands of Israeli civilians and IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers’. Israel described him as ‘one of the architects of the October 7 massacre.’ The strike is the latest launched by Israel on Gaza despite a ceasefire with Hamas. Three eyewitnesses told the BBC that a residential building known as Al-Mu’taz was struck by three missiles launched simultaneously from two separate directions, before a fleeing car was hit. The air strike, targeting the apartment block in the centre of Gaza City, sparked a large fire.” (05/16/26)
- Computer “Age Verification” is About Political Control, Not Child Safety
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“Because California is the ‘authoritarian law idea? Hold my beer!’ state, governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation last October which requires operating system providers to collect age information on each new user account, and provide an API that lets Internet platforms and app developers access that information so as to exclude users Gavin Newsom doesn’t think should be using those platforms and apps [“for the chillllllllllldren”]. It’s almost, but not quite, funny. It’s almost funny because it won’t take the chillllllllllldren in question more than a few minutes to figure out ways around this kind of thing. ‘Age verification’ laws are, and always have been, political fantasy, as you know yourself if you were ever a 19-year-old college student who used a fake ID to get into a nightclub. It’s not quite funny because it isn’t, and never was, about ‘the chillllllllllldren.'” (05/17/26)
- Hobbes’s Self-Defeating Theory
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Joshua Mawhorter“Like it or not, for several centuries now, Hobbes’s nation-state concept has been the default paradigm and context for modern people whenever they think about government. Without having ever read Hobbes, people will unknowingly repeat his assumptions, presuppositions, concerns, and arguments for the state. Yet — with some simple logic and using Hobbes’s own presuppositions — we can internally critique Hobbes’s argument and see that his proposed solution of the state solves none of the problems he presents.” (05/15/26)
- The Endless Search for Emergency Tariff Authority
Source: The Daily Economy
by David Hebert“The legal foundation for taxing every import into the US has now rested, at various points in the past year, on a 1977 emergency powers law, a 1974 statute designed for a monetary system that no longer exists, and — if the administration’s next move is what trade lawyers expect — a Depression-era provision that has never once been used to impose actual tariffs in almost a century. At some point, running out of legal justifications is a signal worth heeding.” (05/15/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-endless-search-for-emergency-tariff-authority/
- Plunder, War Profiteering, and Spirit Airlines
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Charles Goyette“Someone, somewhere is making a lot of money. It’s the most brazen plunder since Hillary Clinton was trading cattle futures in Little Rock. Or since Nancy Pelosi was placing stock trades. Come to think of it, there seems to be a whole lot of plunder going on in the world of politics. It’s not just oil in the ‘Age of Trump.’ As President Ronald Reagan’s budget director and a Wall Street veteran, David Stockman is a seasoned observer of political plunder. When Donald Trump suddenly offered up the suggestion that ‘we’ (the taxpayers) buy struggling Spirit Airlines, Stockman wrote a piece called, ‘Was It You, Barron? Someone Made 3.5X On The Donald’s Spirit Airlines Socialism.’ This chart shows Spirit Holdings share price spiking when Trump started his takeover talk on April 21 (and then quickly collapsing).” (05/15/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/plunder-war-profiteering-and-spirit-airlines
- Is France really poorer than Mississippi?
Source: Washington Post
by Megan McArdle“I’m not, alas, in Paris right now. But I can certainly imagine myself in a Parisian cafe, enjoying some steak frites and a glass of wine while taking in the glorious streetscape. What’s harder to imagine is soaking in all that ambiance and thinking, ‘Yeah, this place is definitely poorer than Mississippi.’ No, seriously, that’s what gross domestic product statistics suggest. In 2024, France had a per capita GDP of $46,103. Mississippi’s was $55,876. As recently as 10 years ago, French GDP was ahead ($37,024 versus $36,184), but since then U.S. GDP and productivity have grown significantly faster than Western Europe’s. This fact has caused much social media friction between smug Americans and defensive Europeans (allied with American progressives) who argue that you can’t measure what makes their way of life better.” (05/17/26)
- Blue state bill targets homeschoolers in latest government power grab
Source: Fox News
by Corey DeAngelis“After decades of parental rights victories, Connecticut may become the first state to go backwards on homeschool freedom in the past 50 years. The Connecticut Senate advanced a bill attacking homeschooling families by a vote of 22 to 14, mostly along party lines. Three Democrats joined all Republicans in opposition. The measure cleared the House 96-53 last week, with four Democrats crossing the aisle to stand with Republicans. Those margins fall short of the two-thirds supermajority required in both chambers to override a gubernatorial veto. Connecticut families now have only one remaining safeguard. Leadership should respect the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children and block this Orwellian legislation.” (05/15/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/blue-state-bill-targets-homeschoolers-latest-government-power-grab
- George Washington, Father of the Country, Killed by Doctors
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Jeffrey A Tucker“he grim circumstances behind the death of George Washington (1732-1799), America’s first president and popularly known as the Father of the Country, are not wholly unknown. The details have been reported by historians for more than two centuries. What’s strange about this dry biographical knowledge is that it is not reported with shock and alarm and hence never conveyed to popular culture with lessons for our lives. This is because Washington’s physicians were following standard protocols when they bled him to death.” (05/15/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/george-washington-father-of-the-country-killed-by-doctors/
- The Rotten Roots of Gerrymandering
Source: Free Association
by Sheldon Richman“Congressional redistricting — or pejoratively, gerrymandering — has dominated the headlines lately. This is a big deal in the primary-election season with an unpopular president and midterms right around the corner. Few issues provoke such animosity. Each side accuses the other of trying to stack the deck and rig the elections. … What most people refuse to understand is that if the public sees the government as a 24/7/365 bazaar offering virtually any benefit demanded of it to those with clout, then those who want what they cannot acquire through persuasion and voluntary exchange will work overtime to gain advantage from political power.” (05/15/26)
https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-the-rotten-roots-of-gerrymandering
- Mercy for good apples when they expose bad apples
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“For American executives who spot fraud and financial misconduct among workers and then quickly report it, the U.S. Justice Department has a refreshing message: Your alertness to right-doing can bring a reward – in mercy. Federal prosecutors were recently handed expanded powers to be lenient toward companies that voluntarily report wrongdoing by individual employees in a ‘timely’ manner, make amends to those wronged, and shape up internal rules – hotlines, audits, etc. – to expose white-collar crime. The accused individuals are then prosecuted, not the company, preventing a hefty fine or forfeiture. Shareholders and employees also benefit from the avoidance of some kinds of negative fallout, such as bankruptcy. Yet the biggest result so far, according to Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York – which includes Wall Street – has been faster and greater detection of fraud.” (05/15/26)
- Trump leaves China with little of substance after summit
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Michael D Swaine“The president’s meeting with Xi Jinping resulted in more fanfare than concrete policy change.” (05/15/26)
- The US Immigration-Control Death Machine
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“Death has always been a central feature of America’s immigration-control system. Death has become normalized. Sure, there will be the standard laments about this tragic occurrence, there will be the standard condemnations of the immigrants themselves for violating U.S. immigration laws, and there will be the standard diatribes against human traffickers who prey on people who are simply trying to survive or improve their lives through labor. But the fact remains: Death has long been an inherent part of America’s immigration-control system. In the absence of that system, all those victims would still be alive.” (05/15/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/05/15/the-u-s-immigration-control-death-machine/
- Why America still needs a complete accounting of the “Russiagate” conspiracy
Source: New York Post
by staff“It’s great that the FBI is probing former CIA Director John Brennan’s role in the Russiagate conspiracy, but the country needs a lot more than criminal investigations and prosecutions to fully air the truth about the 2016 plot to smear Donald Trump as a pawn of Vladimir Putin. The probe turns on Brennan’s apparent perjury in congressional testimony about one part of his role, namely the fact that in 2016 he ensured that the ‘Steele dossier’ would be part of an Intelligence Community Assessment that claimed to find real Trump-Russia collusion. … The dossier, you’ll recall, was a farrago of fiction (including the ‘pee tape’ lie) about Trump’s alleged connections to Russia; the Clinton campaign paid British ex-spook Christopher Steele to fabricate it as a weapon against Trump during the 2016 campaign.” [editor’s note: The Clinton campaign was Steele’s second client for the “dossier” material. The first client was a Republican news site – TLK] (05/16/26)
- Winning? Republicans support a war that’s pummeling ‘Main Street’
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter“If you ask President Donald Trump, he is winning the Iran war, implementing a ‘comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict,’ and making serious progress on ending the war in Ukraine. So much winning — on Main Street, in the Persian Gulf, and everywhere else. But pollsters will tell you that Americans are largely against the war in Iran and feel the president hasn’t really explained why the U.S. is there. Moreover, 60% now have an unfavorable view of our ‘iron clad’ relations with Israel, and a majority have low trust in Trump’s decision-making regarding Ukraine and Russia. These are negatives that could obviously affect his party in the approaching midterm elections.” (05/15/26)
- Stop Trump’s High Seas Killing Spree
Source: OtherWords
by Farrah Hassen“The US military has been carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean and Pacific over the past nine months with impunity. On May 8, the US military struck another boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor. US Southern Command claimed ‘the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes’ and ‘was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.’ According to The Intercept, there have now been 58 such boat strikes since September that have killed at least 193 people. As with the May 8 attack, the names and nationalities of most of these victims remain unknown. The Trump administration has accused civilian boats of transporting narcotics to the US and says its killing ‘narco-terrorists.’ But the Pentagon has provided no evidence for these claims or any indication that the people killed posed an imminent threat” (05/16/26)
https://otherwords.org/the-u-s-must-end-its-illegal-boat-strikes/
- Liberals support even illegal protest while conservatives oppose even legal protest
Source: Expression
by Sean Stevens“First, some good news. Almost no American surveyed, regardless of their ideological views, said that it is ever unacceptable to peacefully protest outside [a] speech. That said, significantly more liberals were accepting of peaceful protest than their moderate and conservative counterparts — but not their very conservative counterparts. If nothing else, these findings show that Lizardman’s Constant, which says about 4% of any survey will give bizarre or insincere results, is alive and well. Yet, when it comes to other protected forms of protest, very liberal and liberal Americans were significantly more supportive of their use than moderate, conservative, or very conservative Americans.” (05/15/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/liberals-support-even-illegal-protest
- Mutual Exchange Radio, 05/16/26
Source: Center for a Stateless Society
“Jason Lee Byas on Justice Beyond the State.” (05/16/26)
https://mutualexchangeradio.libsyn.com/jason-lee-byas-on-justice-beyond-the-state
- Unattended Baggage, episode 340
Source: Unattended Baggage
“Pooh’s your daddy?” (05/16/26)
https://unattendedbaggage.substack.com/p/episode-340-poohs-your-daddy
- Pink Flame of Liberty, 05/16/26
Source: Pink Flame of Liberty
“Let’s Discuss the 2026 National Libertarian Party Platform Committee Report.” (05/16/26)
- Voluntary Order, 05/16/26
Source: Voluntary Order
“The Environment Does NOT Need More Government.” (05/16/26)
- The Dispatch Podcast, 05/15/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Can Redistricting Lead to a GOP Midterm Victory?” (05/15/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/can-redistricting-lead-to-a-gop-midterm-victory/
- The Good Fight Club, 05/16/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“The Vibe Shift That Wasn’t, White Identity Politics, and ‘When They Go Low, We Go Low.'” (05/16/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 05/15/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s GOP Allies Admit He’s Toxic as New Poll Stuns Analyst: ‘Scary.'” (05/15/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/210480/trump-gop-allies-admit-he-toxic-new-poll-stuns-analyst-scary